Social media websites, such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are popular social networks for individuals, companies and other organizations to exchange information. The information exchange via social media covers the entire spectrum of human interests.
Many social media websites, as well as other websites, currently allow for reviews and other comments to be provided by individuals. Privacy concerns and other issues generally prevent knowing detailed or reliable information about the poster of a review or comment. It is also possible that the publically available profile provided by the poster is blank, anonymous or deliberately misleading. The poster may be mimicking human activity but in fact be an automated robot, with an assumed biased party directing the robot. On the Internet, anybody can be anyone.
Whether or not a person is who they claim to be, their expertise in a particular area is undetermined even if they have expertise in another area. For example, a poster could provide a detailed and accurate review of a television set but also provide biased and inaccurate information in a post about a movie or book. It may be because the poster has expertise in one area and not another or it may be because the poster has tastes that a reader shares with respect to television sets but not with respect to movies and books. Whatever the reason, it is difficult to rely on on-line public postings for consistent, reliable and useful information, even if such information is in fact accurate and reliable. It would certainly be counterproductive to rely on the current art of on-line postings as a source of information during a disaster or other emergency situation.